Posts tagged ‘personal branding’

In a couple weeks Russ Finkelstein* and I will head down to San Francisco and LA to pilot our first workshop in the training program we are creating for EPIP (Emerging Practitioners in Philanthropy).

Our affinity process highlighted the potential of so many workshops we could develop, but the first four we’re prioritizing include personal/professional branding, networking, leadership self-assessment, and facilitation.

In addition to creating the lesson plan and handouts, we’ll create pre-assessments, post-workshop evaluations, facilitator materials, and a webinar for each topic.

In California, we’ll pilot the personal/professional branding workshop. In preparation, I’m reading Reid Hoffman’s new book The Start Up of You. In it he articulates something I’ve been trying to find language for — about keeping your identity separate from your employer. It’s such an important point at a time when people shift jobs every couple years.

Inevitably people ask about whether their Twitter feed is their own or their organization’s voice. I think that is hard to answer, and I know that you can lose your job or face other real-life consequences for something you say on your own Twitter feed because that’s happened to people — journalists, politicians, etc.

The point is that you can write about your world outside of work; use your blog or LinkedIn profile or Twitter feed to discuss your independent projects, reading, networking, etc. Representing yourself as a professional is, I guess, an unspoken expectation.

I’m excited about the chance to work with young foundation professionals on these issues and to learn from them how these concepts play out in their own careers.

* Russ is my old boss from Idealist, and my collaborator on the EPIP project now.